ISP Download Speed Performance and Regional Effects
Maimuna Hassan
31/08/21 - 24/09/21
Introduction
Overview
SamKnows is a company with a unique measurement tool called a ‘white box’ that collects a range of performance test metric from volunteers. Some of these tests include download speed, upload speeds and latency measurements. This report investigates how download speeds vary with different ISPs. It particularly focuses on the discrepancy between ISP’s promised 38 and 76 download speeds, and what speeds the white boxes actually measure. The telecommunication technology investigated is FTTC. Technology is kept as a control variable so that any differences found is due to ISPs only. The report will also explore regional differences of the mentioned plans under certain ISPs.
The ISPs investigated are BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk, Sky, Plusnet and EE. Virgin Media was not used as it was the only technology that uses cable technology exclusively. Other ISPs do not have enough white boxes to have make good estimations of download speeds.
Aims
- Investigating which technologies have the worst download and upload speeds.
- Investigating which regions technologies perform worst in.
Definitions
-discrepancy –explain why 10% -proportion? COPY FROM OTHER REPORT
Calculations
-discrepancy -proportion COPY FROM OTHER REPORT
ISPs with fastest download speeds
NOTE SOMEWHERE THAT ISPs NOT REACHING TARGETS COULD ALSO BE A A FAULT OF THE TECHNOLOGY USED (FTTC), NEVERTHELESS DIRECT COMPARISONS BETWEEN ISPs CAN ONLY BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE ISPs THEMSELVES.
A lot of variation, clearly shown which plans do much better than others.
A lot more tight than the previous plan. Some ISP speeds are indistinguishable from each other by eye only.
-why are isps ranked the way they are? lets look at the discrepancies between sold and actual speeds
Discrepancies in within ISPs
EE talktalk and vodafone have visibly low numbers of significant discrepancies compared to lower perfoming ISP like BT and Plusnet.
It seems that with increase package speed, there is an increase in amount of significant discrepancy. A lot higher discrepancies, even for well performing ISPs. will have to see if we can attribute these discrepancies to certain regions of the UK?
-are there particular regions of the UK we an attribute these discrepancies to? see which regions might be under performing, and if there’s a pattern.
Proportion of people with slow speeds in the UK.
These are maps that look at performance in different regions of certain ISPs. See HYPERLINK <— section to see how all plans act relative to each other.
Talk about the increasing or decreasing discrepancies
TalkTalk
best performer in both package plans
| Worst regions for 38 Mbps plan | Worst regions for 76 Mbps plan |
|---|---|
| Wales | Yorkshire and The Humber |
| East Midlands | Wales |
| Scotland | North West |
EE
| Worst regions for 38 Mbps plan | Worst regions for 76 Mbps plan |
|---|---|
| East Midlands | North East |
| East of England | Scotland |
| South West | Wales |
BT
| Worst regions for 38 Mbps plan | Worst regions for 76 Mbps plan |
|---|---|
| Northern Ireland | West Midlands |
| North West | South West |
| East of England | South East |
Plusnet
| Worst regions for 38 Mbps plan | Worst regions for 76 Mbps plan |
|---|---|
| Wales | South East |
| West Midlands | Yorkshire and The Humber |
| Northern Ireland | East of England |